Nature as impression for Dao: A theory of spiritual tourism development in Da-Nang - Viet-Nam

Abstract

To keep pace with the developing trend of spiritual tourism in Viet-Nam, the city of Da-Nang continuously expands the size of spiritual festivals, inaugurates new religious establishments, and prepares to build a spiritual cultural theme park. Given this form of tourism is young for Da-Nang, the issue is how the city should develop its spiritual tourism offering in a determinative and authentic way for the efficiency of its environment, socio-cultural, and economic sectors. This research aims to generate a theory of current spiritual tourism development in Da-Nang by a qualitative method, grounded theory, which refers to interview data and utilises a specific coding system. Discussion of the theory is based on comparisons and contrasts to cases and situations of heritage, cultural, and especially spiritual tourism development; and to the tourism development literature. Recommendation is made for a selective orientation for a more sound and effective development. Theoretical contributions of spiritual tourism development in Da-Nang, and future research directions are presented.